Full Moons, Foreign Affairs, and Grandpa's Old Cough Medicne

Last Sunday was the Moon Festival celebration here in China and was the first time that this holiday was a public holiday in China. Because they use the lunar calender it always lands on a night with a full moon. It was also the first full day I spent with my host family...

The Original plan was to meet around 9 am at the East Gate. According to my recent sleep schedule that wasn't going to work; we adjusted the time to 10. When I arrived at the East Gate (about a 3 minute walk from our room) they were already waiting for me but they said they hadn't been waiting long. My host sister, her friend, and my host sister's mother came to pick me up and we were on our way! but I was not sure where as all they had told me thus far was that dinner was around 7 with the extended family.

They asked me if I had been to a park I could not pronounce and I told them that I hadn't, turns out the one park I have been to in all of Chengdu was the same one that we were going to this mornging. When we arrived the mother (I can't remember her name... not that I could write or pronounce it anyway) simply dropped us off and I must have given her the "scared dear in the headlights" look because she shooed me away from the car with a smile so she could drive off. 

The park is actually an amazing place and would be a great place to unwind... Unwinding was not in the plans that day. My hosts, not knowing I had been here already, decided we needed to see as much of the park as we could in our two hours before lunch time. Finally we stumbled upon a couple of solid wood chairs made of tree trunks, they were massive. It was great to sit and not really do anything for about 30 seconds when a woman came along and sat next to me and somehow indicated that she wanted her picture with me. She held out her hand and I wasn't sure what to do with it so I slowly put out my hand and she grabbed it quickly and told her husband to take the picture. There we were, in two wooden chairs made of tree trunks, two foriegners holding hands, the husband taking the picture. When she got up to leave she touched her nose and said somthing in Chinese that I obviously didn't understand, I looked at my host sister and she said that the woman said to remember her forever. I figured it was one of those times it was just best to nod and say okay...

We left the park around 12 pm and made our way to the dumpling restaurant that was supposedly famous for its dumplings. Dumplings came in a bowl with the spices underneath them. "Perfect!" I thought to myself, "I'll just eat the dumplings and on top where there are no spices and no one will be the wiser!" Boy was I wrong. The friend was sitting across from me decided I didn't know what I was doing, took the bowl from me, and proceeded to stir all of it together. I watched in horror. My host sister apparently ordered me the least spicy thing she could find and soon found out that she was accidently given that bowl so we switched soon after the tragedy of my orignaly dumplings but I was still sweating bullets by the end of the meal.

We visited a street designed to look similar to one that would be found in China hundreds of years ago then headed home. When we finally arrived to her house her friend had gone home on another bus but her mother and father were home. My host siter, her mom, and I talked for a long time while I showed them pictures, told them where I lived in the US, and gave them wild rice from MN. Her father never left the computer room because he was too busy playing video games... it was a little awkward. I still had a little cough so my host mother gave me some of their medicine and explained to me that in China their medicine takes a lot longer to fix the problem but there are no side affects. My host sister told me it tasted like Starbucks and you had two ways to take the medicine: 1, put the crystals in hot water or 2. eat it and then drink water. They put it in hot water for me and although I've never had a Starbuck's coffee I am convinced that no coffee chain (much less one as popular as Starbucks) would make any money selling this stuff. I couldn't finish it and hid it by placing another cup over my used, partially full, cup.

Around 6:30 my sister told me it her mom wanted to go out and buy me some flower peppers and fruit. (flower pepper is a seasoning that you're apparently not really supposed to eat, not knowing that a couple of us popped some in our mouth. A few seconds later our lips and tongue were numb... it's kinda fun.) We eventually found to bags of flower peppers, 2 mangos, and a bag of a fruit that looks a lot like minauture apples. I told them that they certainitly didn't need to buy me this stuff but they told me it was custom so I was forced to go with it. ;)

Soon we left to go to dinner at a resturant about 5 minutes away by car. It was a nice restaurant and all of my host dad's extended family would be at the restuarnt. There was our family, an aunt, her husband, an uncle, his wife, their one year old, grandma, and two teenage girls. After spending 10 minutes and almost switcing rooms because of the air conditioner, although I was comfortable, it was time to eat. My host sister asked me if I could drink wine, I told her yes and soon found out that "wine" really means 52% rice wine. Horrible stuff. She told me it was father's favorite drink and that it burns all the way down. Spectacular. Turn out it was only the men at the table drinking (although the related uncle's wife often snuck some of his "wine"). They also told me that it would cure my cough. I don't know how much of that was true. We drank it everytime they made a toast, which they decided they needed to do often. One to welcome me, one for the festival, one just to say cheers and at least one more for the festival. I felt like I should participate in the toasting so I asked my sister if I could toast them. Before I could finsih my sentence everyone had stopped talking and was staring at me. I looked at them awkwardly, raised my shot/wine glass and said "Cheers!" Luckly they responded with "Cheers!" and I think they were glad that I at least tried.

Soon it was time to leave and while in the parking lot I was fortunate enough to experience a common occurance in Chinese life. A child being suspended in the air by one of their parents about a foot off the ground. The child was wearing his usual cowboy stirrup style pants without anything underneath peeing in the parking lot. 

When I finally got back we lit paper lanterns and set them off into the sky... it was incredibly bueatful.

It was a very interesting day, long, but very interesting. Highlight- Lanterns. Lowlight- a lot of downtime before dinner and after the park.